EarthBound Halloween Hack
EarthBound Halloween Hack, or Radiation's Halloween Hack, also sometimes known as Press the B Button, Stupid! is a romhack of EarthBound made by Toby Fox and released in 2008 for starmen.net's Halloween Funfest. It was inspired by the Brandish series, where the hack's protagonist, Varik comes from. It is much shorter than the original EarthBound. Story The hack takes place in an alternate timeline of EarthBound, where the chosen four didn't return. Varik is tasked with killing a monster who killed a young girl's mother. The hack starts in Twoson, then continues through the dark Sewers, Winters the "land of doom". At this point, Varik has to make a choice whether or not kill Dr. Andonuts. The only apparent choice is "yes", since choosing the other, blank choice makes the narrator say it's not a choice and return to the selection screen. Choosing yes makes Varik kill Dr. Andonuts and makes the game end early. If the player presses the B button, like the game's alternative title encourages, Varik gets into Dr Andonuts's mind, Magicant. From there, Varik finds Dr. Andonuts's lost courage, fighting 3 bosses and gaining the 3 partners from EarthBound and proceeds to the Sea of Eve. From there, Varik reaches an area that uses Twoson's tileset and enters Dr. Andonuts's brain. He meets Dr. Andonuts, whose appearance is now horrible. Varik defeats Andonuts's Id, which doesn't use any attacks. Dr. Andonuts transforms to a new form, having blue glow around him and using powerful attacks, as Megalovania plays. Varik and his party eventually defeat him, making the narrator mention that he didn't really have to kill him (which is not true - killing Dr. Andonuts is the only way to reach the end of the hack). The hack ends with a ghost pooting on Varik's face to provide an anticlimax and Toby Fox thanking the player for playing the hack. Gameplay The overall gameplay is the same as in the original EarthBound, with the text or battle systems being unchanged. The hack is however, much more difficult than the original. Development The hack was created with the PKHack EarthBound rom editor, which is very difficult to use. Toby had to be very careful to not corrupt the ROM and had to leave in some corrupted and messed-up tiles. Toby Fox details the development of the hack in a HTML page included with the hack and on his former website. Soundtrack Toby Fox composed a custom soundtrack for the hack, even though hacking EarthBound's music was really hard, according to the "making of" HTML page. Most of it is based on EarthBound's original songs, with 2 songs being ported from other games and 3 songs being completely original. Reception The hack's initial reception was very good, althrough after Undertale's release, most new people who discovered the hack throught it was, as Toby Fox said himself in a tweet, just a "bad rom hack with swears". Trivia * EarthBound Halloween Hack wasn't the only EarthBound romhack Toby made. He made another, much more lighthearted hack called Arn's Winter Quest. * Undertale referenced EarthBound Halloween Hack in a couple of places. One of the flowers in Magicant says that Dr. Andonuts used it in an experiment, which matches Flowey. Photoshop Flowey's game over screen is non-standard, with Flowey teasing the player about it just being a dream, and laughs for a while, before he closes the game. Same thing happens in the Halloween Hack if you lose to Dr. Andonuts, except the game doesn't close. And, of course, there's the fact that a version of Megalovania plays on a Genocide Route after Sans makes it clear that the protagonist is evil and a threat. External Links * The hack's page * EarthBound Central's article on the hack Other Toby FoxCategory:Earthbound Category:Games